A blog about my profession, flexible education, and about Internet, the social web, and anything else that catches my eye.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Week 1 #ioe12

I thought myself fairly knowledgeable about open licensing but gained interesting new ideas and concepts as I worked through the material and read the work of others. The CC game taught me about remixing and licensing the remixes. This game will have a concrete effect on how I produce and license works.
Pollocks 2006 paper Value of the Public Domain also gave me a new angle on the economics of openness and copyright, discussing how we value property and how that valuing influences the economics of the system.Towards Openness by Allan Quartly (January 14 2012) summed up the material far better than I can. I particularly liked his graphs.

Today Wikipedia is blacked out as part of the protest against SOPA and PIPA. I can't help feeling that these acts are a reaction towards the success of the openness movement. Venerable companies and organisations are threatened by the new media and the concepts of sharing, remixing and openness. Rather than opening up the new landscape, creating new business models, these companies are instead trying to close out the new landscape. They want to force us all back behind the fences where their old business model will continue and they will continue to thrive.
Parallels with East Germany could be drawn and we all know how successful that model was!
Fortunately there are exceptions, companies that are adjusting to the new landscape. Andreas Link's ScoopIt pointed me towards the Springer publishing company with its decision to broaden the use of its Open Choice option.

A stretched excuse for a picture - Another form of openness - a wonderful program of modern dance by Norrdans in our Swedish town. The dances are designed for their large windows. The public stands outside and gets to see the whole spectacle for free!